IRB Infrastructure May Partner With Overseas Developers for Road Projects

By Sumit Sharma -
Apr 8, 2010

IRB Infrastructure Developers Ltd.,
India’s third-largest road builder by value, may partner with
overseas developers to help the company become eligible to bid
for larger highway projects.

The Mumbai-based developer can bid for projects of up to
200 billion rupees ($4.5 billion) in auctions for the so-called
mega-highway projects, Chairman Virendra Mhaiskar said. He
declined to identify potential partners or projects.

“These companies could be developers who may have
technical expertise and may want to infuse some money,”
Mhaiskar said in an interview today. IRB is seeking partners
because the National Highways Authority of India may raise
technical parameters for large projects, he said.

India, ranked below war-ravaged Ivory Coast and Sri Lanka
for the quality of infrastructure, plans to build 7,000
kilometers (4,350 miles) of highways a year to ease congestion
and lift growth. India’s Roads Minister Kamal Nath expects the
new highways to add as much as 2 percentage points to gross
domestic product of Asia’s third-largest economy. Roads move 75
percent of India’s freight traffic and 85 percent of passengers.

Road projects of between 390 kilometers and 700 kilometers
in length are termed as mega-highway projects, according to the
government. India is ranked 89 out of 133 nations for its
infrastructure, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global
Competitiveness Index.

IRB is building 1,600 kilometers of highways and has no
immediate plan to sell shares to the public or institutions,
Mhaiskar said.